


Raspberry Swirl

by rendawnie



Series: Pieces [13]
Category: BLACKPINK (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Diners, Awkwardness, Dessert & Sweets, Diners, F/F, Family Issues, First Kiss, Flirting, Getting to Know Each Other, Late Night Conversations, Late at Night, Pie, Restaurants, Smoking, Waiters & Waitresses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-12-01 22:40:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11496231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rendawnie/pseuds/rendawnie
Summary: On their fourth night working together, Jennie and Lisa have their first real conversation. The first of many.Soundtrack: "Raspberry Swirl", Tori Amos





	Raspberry Swirl

It’s usually three in the morning when Jennie needs a break.

By the time three rolls around, the after-bar crowds have mostly left, and all that remains are the overnighters. Like Jennie.

Pie in the Sky may not be a dream job, but it doesn’t matter, because Jennie wouldn’t be using the time to dream, anyway. Insomnia has been a part of her life since she was a child, and she’s grown used to it. They’re old friends by now, so when Jennie landed a third shift job at an all-night dessert diner, it seemed like a good fit. It was okay. It was nothing special, until Lisa.

Lisa’s been working at the diner on Jennie’s shift for four days, and with each passing day, Jennie feels more and more... _something._ She’s not sure what, really. Nauseous, maybe? Constantly near some sort of momentous and potentially life-threatening heart event?

Something.

She’s starting to feel like that again, and it’s three in the morning and the last customer of the post-bar rush is stumbling out of the restaurant, so Jennie unties her apron and works her way across the main dining room, through the kitchen, and out the back door.

This is where all the smokers take their breaks. Jennie doesn’t smoke. She gulps and inhales the muggy night air instead, and it’s hot, but it’s a welcome kind of heat. A change from inside. Jennie takes a few more steps into the back lot, moving past the dumpster piled high with tonight’s trash bags, and then she realizes she’s not alone.

Lisa wears knee high boots to work. Jennie hasn’t noticed that until now, when she realizes she’s not alone because Lisa is straightening up from where she was crouched next to the dumpster, puffing on a cigarette, and she’s wearing knee high boots that are ridiculously impractical for a waitress. Jennie’s guessing this is her first attempt at the profession. She’ll learn.

Lisa stretches. She’s tall, or maybe just lanky. Leggy.

Something.

She smiles, and Jennie can tell it’s meant to be bright and carefree, but it falters halfway through, turns into something a bit more tired than that. They’re all tired.

“My feet hurt,” Lisa says softly, by way of greeting. She takes another drag off her cigarette. This is the first real conversation they’ve had with each other, besides when they were introduced on Lisa’s first day. After that, Jennie may have gone a little too far out of her way to avoid Lisa. She’s not sure why. Maybe she’s intimidated. Lisa could kick the shit out of Jennie with those boots.

Jennie thinks she might let her, if given the opportunity.

It takes almost a full thirty seconds to remember that she needs to answer.

“Uh...uh, yeah. I bet. With those. Shoes?” Jennie’s voice goes up at the end, like it’s a question.

Lisa giggles quietly, flicking the spent cigarette away with two fingers. “Yeah. These...they’re...they’re the only shoes I’ve got right now.”

Jennie has four pairs of crisp white tennis shoes at home. She wonders what size Lisa wears, or if she actually wants the boot-wearing to stop.

“Oh,” Jennie replies finally. Now she's just wondering when she got so bad at talking to people, or if it’s just Lisa.

Jennie’s not really aware of the way she’s stepping closer, her footsteps quiet, like she’s trying not to be caught, even though Lisa’s looking right at her, nearly looking through her with a steady gaze and that tired little smile.

“Have you worked here long?” Lisa asks next, clearly trying to keep the conversation going, since Jennie is kind of useless, and it’s kind of obvious.

“I guess. Six months,” Jennie says. Lisa’s fingernails are painted black, chipped around the edges.

Lisa chuckles. “I can’t remember the last time I did anything or stayed anywhere for six entire months in a row.”

Jennie swallows, hard. She feels like they’re having two different conversations, with about twenty different topics, and she can’t grab onto anything Lisa is actually saying, but it feels like every word she chooses is important.

After another long moment of regarding each other silently, Lisa clears her throat and sits down on the curb, gesturing for Jennie to sit with her.

Jennie sits. She hopes it’s not too close, or too far.

“I’ve lived in my car for more than six months, I guess,” Lisa amends a minute later. “I guess that counts for something.”

Jennie frowns a little. “You don’t live with your family?”

Lisa shrugs. Her smile turns tired and sad again. Raw. “I don’t really have much of that.”

“Me either,” Jennie answers, too fast. The rhythm of this is all wrong, the words at the wrong time and the sentences out of order, but Jennie likes it. “I don’t have any family either. I haven’t talked to them since I moved to the city to work on music.”

“And now you work here,” Lisa says, and she doesn’t mean it unkindly. She says everything with an air of curiosity Jennie is jealous of. It seems almost innocent. Jennie wonders if it actually is.

“And now I work here,” Jennie agrees. This is getting easier, maybe, or she’s just ignoring the hard parts of it better.

Lisa pulls another cigarette from her pack and lights it up. Jennie really does hate the smell of smoke, but she can’t quite bring herself to move away from Lisa. From this. She watches quietly as Lisa wraps her lips around the thin paper stick and inhales deep, her slender fingers shaky.

“Why don’t you have any family?” Jennie blurts, before she can stop herself. It isn't what she wanted to ask, and she’s not sure if she’s even allowed, but all the other things she could think of were so much and so big that neither of them would have been able to pin down any answers. Not yet.

Twirling the cigarette between her fingers, Lisa glances over at Jennie, biting her lip. “Well. I was never very good in school. I was always distracted. I liked kissing more than I liked studying, I suppose.”

Jennie is positive she’s blushing.

Almost like an afterthought, in a voice so soft Jennie can’t be sure Lisa’s really aware she’s saying it, Lisa murmurs, “I suppose I liked kissing girls more than I liked anything, and my family didn't like that.”

There was no warning, all right? There was no warning for those first eleven words and no indication that they would be falling out of Lisa’s mouth, and so Jennie swiftly descends into an unplanned coughing fit, and then Lisa is throwing her cigarette out and it’s skipping across the concrete and she's clapping Jennie on the back while Jennie coughs, and they do that for a while, until Jennie’s done coughing and things are sufficiently awkward between them. Again.

Again? Were they ever really awkward? Jennie doesn’t know what’s real anymore, except her embarrassment.

Next to her, Lisa’s giggling again. “Sorry,” she says finally. “I didn’t mean to throw you off _that_ much.”

Jennie snorts. “Only a little?”

Lisa shrugs. Her smile’s bigger. More awake. “Maybe a little,” she answers. Jennie likes the way she talks. Every word seems to have at least three different meanings, three different directions the next word could go. She’s like nothing Jennie’s ever seen before, in the best way possible.

Jennie checks her watch. She’s only used eight minutes of her fifteen minute break, even though it feels like longer. She wonders when Lisa’s break ends. If Lisa even told anyone she was taking a break.

Staring down at her white tennis shoes, Jennie tries to think of something else to say. She thinks and she thinks, and there’s six minutes left in her break now, and Lisa hasn’t lit up another cigarette and finally Jennie asks, “What’s your favorite pie here so far?”

It’s possibly the dumbest, most pointless thing she could have asked, but there’s no taking it back now.

Lisa is looking at her with something in her eyes that Jennie can’t quite name, or maybe she’s too shy to try.

“I like raspberry swirl,” she says after a while, her lilting voice dripping with honey, suddenly, and it’s so obvious that even Jennie doesn’t have enough self-loathing to miss the way that sweetness is directed right at her.

Flirting. Lisa is _flirting_ with her.

Shit.

“Why?” Jennie questions, before she can lose the nerve.

Lisa grins. “Because it’s creamy. It’s sweet, but not too sweet. I like that.”

It’s all Jennie can do to keep grinning back, to not lean over and see what kissing Lisa is like.

She’s almost changed her mind when the back door of the diner bursts open and Hyunsuk, the manager, leans out.

“You’ve been out here for thirty-six minutes, Lisa. Don’t make me fire you tonight, we’re already short-staffed. Get back inside.”

Lisa nods, and she’s about to answer, but she’s interrupted by Hyunsuk again, pointing at Jennie, now.

“And you, too, Jennie. No time for the last two minutes tonight, ladies.” With that, the door slams and they’re alone again. As alone as they can get in the center of this big city, with the space between them closing more every second.

Turning back to face Jennie, Lisa smiles a little, and Jennie doesn’t have time to think before Lisa’s pressing a soft, split-second kiss to her lips, and then she gets up and goes back inside and it takes another full minute before Jennie catches up enough to do the same.

It’s eight in the morning when they’re finally off the clock, and Jennie goes to the bathroom and changes out of her uniform while Lisa changes right there in between the two rows of lockers in the back, just like she has every day, the last four days.

Ten minutes later, Jennie and Lisa are sharing the same side of the very last booth, way in the back of the restaurant, and Jennie uses some of her tips to buy them a slice of raspberry swirl pie, and they have breakfast together. The first breakfast of many, but neither of them know that yet.

When breakfast is done, Jennie takes Lisa to her place, for a shower that isn’t in the bathroom sink at the bus station down the street, and when Lisa is clean and fresh-faced and wearing Jennie’s pajamas, they curl up on Jennie’s bed and Jennie wraps her bare feet around Lisa’s boots and lets Lisa tell all her stories, and then they start to write new ones together.

No matter how many chapters they write, Jennie’s favorite will always be that first night, which was actually the fourth night.

No matter how many times they share breakfast, nothing will taste better than that first slice of raspberry swirl pie.


End file.
